It is common place for international K-Pop fans to send gifts overseas to their favorite idols in Korea. Quite often, gifts which hold high monetary value or emotional sentiment are mailed to general addresses within agencies, concert venues, and television studios. Recently, fans were discouraged and saddened by a television script writer for MBC who bragged about enjoying snack gifts that were intended for SHINee's Jonghyun. The snacks were sent to Jonghyun, care of MBC, with the staff at the studio using the gifts instead of sending them along to the idol. While this may be a common practice, the script writer thoughtlessly bragged about eating the snacks with total disregard to the Polish fan who had sent the present.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this situation was that the script writer took photos of the consumed gifts and included statements such as, “the unfortunate Poland fan girl probably feels worse than having ridden the wrong bus.” The script writer shares the same name as Jonghyun and therefore received the present. News of the story spread quickly through netizens, leading the script writer to remove the photos and post from Facebook.

Fans are often discouraged from bringing gifts for idols to K-Pop concerts in the United States and abroad, with the primary reason being that the overwhelming amount of items cannot always make their way back to Korea. This latest story can serve as a cautionary tale for fans who will send items of great significance to their favorite idols to addresses that are not attended by the agency or through means that are not necessarily encouraged.